MaaXBoard Chronicles #2 - MaaXBoard at CES!

24 Jan 2020

The other week Avnet attended the Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES)! There Avnet showcased many IoT Platforms and example applications where the Avnet ecosystem can be applied.

One such demo showcased was an example of a Smart Crane which addresses the Industrial and Construction vertical markets.

A brief overview of what was shown was a dashboard application that would display what an operator would see, in which you control the movement of the crane using a controller. As you move the controller positional telemetry updates on the screen in real time. This telemetry was being processed by the edge device, which in this case was the Avnet MaaXBoard featuring the NXP i.MX 8M application processor running Windows 10 IoT Core as the operating system. The edge device would then send the telemetry up to Avnet's IoTConnect which is based off of Microsoft Azure for remote viewing.

The Smart Crane demo features many aspects of the Avnet Ecosystem ranging from Hardware Design, Embedded Software, Application Development, and the IoTConnect platform. Going into more detail:

Hardware Design : In this application the Avnet designed and manufactured MaaXBoard was used as the edge device. The MaaXBoard which offers NXP i.MX 8M processor is a perfect solution for an edge device that requires edge processing. The MaaXBoard having been developed by Avnet is offered as a standardized product which is currently available. In addition, Avnet also offers various design services and customization around this platform to suit an end customers need.

Embedded and Application Software Design - Avnet offers Embedded Software Design and Application Software design services. The way this portion of the Avnet Ecosystem was applied to the Smart Crane was through the port of Windows 10 IoT Core to the NXP i.MX 8M processor, in addition the team developed the application on top of the OS showcasing what the crane operator would see as the crane turns left and right.

IoT Connect Platform - Avnet's IoTConnect platform was utilized to host/display the telemetry being sent up to Microsoft Azure from the Crane display. The IoT Connect platform allows critical IoT devices, assets, and systems to be connected securely without compromising speed and simplicity by leveraging pre-built applications.

Check out this Video to see the MaaXBoard Smart Crane Demo in Action!

Smart Crane: Featuring - Joshua Foster from Avnet

http://videos.avnet.com/detail/videos/avnet/video/6124146987001/ces-2020:-crane-demo

If you would like to see more of what Avnet showcased at CES, check out the following!

Event Highlights:

http://videos.avnet.com/detail/videos/avnet/video/6124156491001/ces-2020-highlights-v1

Smart Fleet: Featuring - Kranti Kambhampati from Avnet

http://videos.avnet.com/detail/video/6124162780001/ces-2020:-smart-fleet-demo

Smart Water Metering:

http://videos.avnet.com/detail/videos/avnet/video/6124150193001/ces-2020:-smart-water-metering

Smart Coffee Brewer: Featuring - Randy Cochran from Avnet

http://videos.avnet.com/detail/video/6124152712001/ces-2020:-coffee-demo